LILLEY: Norman not the only victim of Trudeau's vindictive streak

As the Conservatives hammered the Liberals in the House of Commons for the second night in a row, a woman at the centre of the drama surrounding Vice-Admiral Mark Norman was hammering the actions of the Trudeau government.

Kelly Gabie was the lead federal representative in the negotiations to award a supply ship retrofit contract to the Davie shipyard in Quebec.

It was that contract that caused controversy in Ottawa and resulted in Vice-Admiral Norman facing criminal charges over allegations that he leaked cabinet secrets about the project shortly after Justin Trudeau became prime minister.

Last week, the charges against Norman were stayed after new evidence was presented by the defence but not before Norman spent more than two years under suspension from the navy and facing an uncertain future.

In a letter to Conservative MP Michelle Rempel, Gabie thanks the MP for her support of Norman but says he hasn’t been the only one hurt.

“The Liberal government has not just hurt (Vice-Admiral) Norman; there has been so much collateral damage affecting every member of the integrated team that worked on that file, either DMs retired out early, ADMs promoted quietly out of Ottawa,” Gabie writes.

That contract to Davie was awarded under the Conservatives before the last election but reviewed by Trudeau’s Liberals.

In the end, the contract was stayed with Davie and Norman was charged on the claim that he leaked the discussions with a competitor, Irving, to people at Davie.

The Irving family controls vast industrial and media assets in Canada including a shipyard in New Brunswick that wanted the contract.

As she blasts the system, and the current government for their handling of the file and the treatment of Norman, Gabie also details the toll the process has taken on her.

“All this stress over this file and just doing what was asked of me, according to my doctors, has contributed to why I am now battling breast cancer, also all of the trauma and PTSD from the anxiety of being perceived to have done something wrong by my colleagues and future supervisors,” Gabie writes.

Contacted by phone, Gabie declined further comment, saying she could not speak to the media.

Her letter to MP Rempel is the latest shot taken at the Trudeau government by those close to the Norman trial.

At her news conference after the charges against Norman were stayed, defence lawyer Marie Henein said that Norman did something smart that the PM did not.

“Fortunately Vice-Admiral Norman didn’t fire the females he hired,” Henein said in a slam against Trudeau’s supposedly feminist credentials and his firing of Jody Wilson-Raybould as attorney-general.

On Tuesday, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer compared the Trudeau government’s treatment of Norman to that of Omar Khadr who they paid $10.5 million to in order to avoid going to court against Khadr.

Norman had no such luck.

He was prosecuted for more than two years on a charge that was politically motivated from the start.